N Chandrasekaran, Tata Sons chairman said in a statement said even though a “hybrid” model will be the new normal in the future, India’s largest software exporter TCS will ask employees to come to work after the COVID-19 Pandemic is over.
Chandrasekaran explained and said “social interactions are a social necessity.
“I do want to make the point that people need to meet people. It is a social necessity,” he said.
“Because of social necessity, there will be a shift towards moving people to work when the pandemic gets over,” Chandrasekaran said.
Currently, 97 per cent of TCS employees are working from home because of the pandemic, he said, admitting that a “hybrid” model where people work from homes and also from offices will be the new normal.
“We still believe that offices will be needed. The occupancy levels may go down. There will be a lot more collaboration spaces in offices once people start coming in to work,” he said,
It can be noted that after the emergence of the pandemic, the company had first spelt out its 25-by-25 strategy, which said that at any given point of time a fourth of its staff will be working from the offices by 2025.
Chandrasekaran said the company was quick to shift work to the new normal after the country was put under a lockdown and ensured that all the necessary work happened at the backend, including shifting of computers and establishing security protocols. He said 5 per cent of its 4.88 lakh workforce was impacted by COVID-19 infections and added that 80 per cent those affected have already recovered.
Commenting on employees’ mental well-being while working from homes, Chandrasekaran said the HR department has reached out to every single employee and also developed in-house tools to discuss other issues beyond work and also indulge in hobbies like art and films.
Tata Consultancy Services has chalked out a plan to bring employees back to offices, for this purpose the company has prepared a risk assessment model- Intelligent Urban Exchange to assess how to bring back a certain percentage of employees to the office. With PTI Inputs.